Road to East
Asia

A journal on contemporary East Asian literature in
English

Americanizing Japan

After its surrender in 1945, Japan was occupied by Allied forces, chiefly the United States,
that changed its military, political, and educational systems (Coillier's Encyclopedia, 1981,
484). A Pale View of Hills, by Kazuo Ishiguro, demonstrates the struggle of
Japan's prewar generation to keep their Japanese identity, values, and traditions, as well as
the responses of the Nagasaki survivors to Western influences.

The first task of the American occupation was demilitarization. Once Japan was
demilitarized, many of its leaders were tried and punished while those who had supported
militarism and nationalism were declared ineligible for political office in the future (The
World Book Encyclopeia 1986, 42). The occupational forces introduced into the school
system democratic concepts and practices, replacing the curriculum of the 1890s, which
stressed loyalty, filial piety, and emperor worship.

Such postwar realities alarm ogata-san, the retired teacher in A Pale View of Hills.
"I devcoted my life to the teaching of the young," he says. "And then I watched the
Americans tear it all down" (Ishiguro 1982, 66). His student, Shigeo Matsuda, holds a
totally different opinion: "in your day, children in Japan were taught . . .not to see, not to
question. And that's why the country was plunged into the most evil disaster in her entire
history" (Ishiguro 1982, 147).
Meanwhile Japan's new constitution guarantees women equal rights in all fields (The
World Book Encyclopedia 1986, 38). As a result, young Japanese women began to move
away from the traiditonal role as an obedient wife while the elderly Japanese men have had
difficulty accepting the idea of equality between the sexes. "All in the name of democracy
people abandon obligations," Ogata-san says, complaining that "A wife feels no sense of
loyalty towards the household."

The Japanese place great value upon the family unit, and it has long been a part of the
tradition for a couple to live with the husband's family and for the wife to care for her in-
laws. Instead, Etsuko and Jiro in A Pale View of Hills live on their own, apart
from all in-laws. Etsuko's second daughter, Nikki, goes a step further. Raised in England,
she has become
like many women in the first world, who fiercely guard their independence. "So many
women just get brainwashed," she says. "They think all there is to life is getting married
and having a load of kids" (Ishiguro 1982, 179-180).
The Japanese emulate the West for they see it as a better place to live. Etsuko moves to
England from a country in ruins to escape Japanese customs and restrictions. Her friend,
Sachiko, does the same, expecting a drunk named Frank to take her to America. In
addition, she wants better opportunities for her daughter, Mariko, who could become an
artist, painter, or business girl.

To the Japanese, Western life has much more appeal than their way of life in Asia;
therefore, so many have moved to countries like America. Yet a life in a land of
opportunities and wealth does not necessarily guarantee happiness. Although it was the
Allied forces which reform Japan after World War II, the Japanese are the ones who
welcomed and accepted such Western ideas. The postwar generation is slowing beginning
to realize that the old Japanese traditions are a part of their identity. A Pale View of
Hills ends with Etsuko recognizing that "It's not a bad thing at all, the Japanese way"
(Ishiguro, 1982, 181).